Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
And turn your Bibles, please, to Matthew chapter #12 the book of
Matthew chapter #12 We got a lot to get to.
So let's get right to it as we continue looking at the
fundamentals of the faith and comparing them to the religion,
the false religion of Islam. And we'll go through just a tiny
amount of review here in just a moment, and then get to where we
need to go this week so we can finish those fundamentals of the
faith. And then next week, answer the
question I'm sure is on your mind.
How do we witness to the Muslims, friends and the people
that we have in our community? And I'm really looking forward
to getting into that next week. And so just by way of review, we
want to remember that there are 5 pillars of Islam and we saw
that they are the creed. And what is that creed?
It is there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.
But then we also saw that there is prayer.
That prayer is offered five times a day.
Then there is almsgiving. And that is in certain
situations, 2.5% of a person's income is given to charitable
pursuits with others fasting, particularly during the month
long celebration of Ramadan. And then we saw there's a
pilgrimage. Those who are physically and
financially able are required to be able to go to Mecca.
And then we saw last week that there were two fundamentals.
We saw a sacred texts and authorities.
And we saw that the sacred texts conclude the Quran, but also the
hadith, and that hadith that was the book or books rather of
which spoke of Muhammad and what his exploits and his thoughts
were, as well as some interpretation of those and then
his authority, Muhammad being the prophet of prophets, the
highest of all of the prophets. And then we looked at creation
and we saw that while there were some similarities to where we
find biblical creation in the Word of God, that the idea of
creation is much different in Islam in the sense that and
evolution is allowed to be part of it on top of the fact that
Jesus Christ would not have been part of creation.
And that really is going to be part of what we want to talk
about today because this week we're going to look at the other
two fundamentals that we mentioned last week, which is
the nature of God and the nature of salvation.
And much of the issue with the nature of God comes down to this
Jesus Christ, because Muslims will say to you to your face
that they believe in Jesus Christ.
This is important for us to understand here today, that if
you were to ask a Muslim, do you believe in Jesus Christ, if that
was the question that you were to pose to someone of the
Islamic faith, they would say absolutely, we believe in Jesus
Christ. The issue, however, is what
Jesus Christ do they believe in? Because their Jesus would not be
our Jesus. And that's why when you're
dealing with false religions, when you're dealing with cults,
it's very important to get past the first question and typically
to dig deeper into the answer than just simply accepting the
answer. We're going to see a lot of the
cults, particularly when you ask, do you believe in Jesus
Christ? They'll say, of course we
believe in Jesus Christ. Do you believe that God is the
creator? Yes, we believe that God is the
creator, but what does that mean?
Define your terms so that we can better understand and you start
to find that, well, this is not what we believe from the Word of
God, and what they are saying is not from the Word of God.
And it's important for us to understand because the way that
error flourishes is by having some element of truth within it.
The best counterfeits are the ones that look a lot like the
real thing, aren't they? I don't know anything about
counterfeit money. I mean, I haven't used it
lately, but I do know this. Is this OK?
We can't use this in a court of law, I don't think.
But anyway, I would know this, that if you put Monopoly money
into the deposit at the bank, you know, put it up that little
tube, I imagine that tube would be coming back real quick
saying, yeah, you cannot make a deposit with this pink note that
comes from your game of Monopoly.
However, what could be passable is something that has the look,
the feel, the smell of regular money of which we are used to.
And so when it comes to false religions, listen, the most
outlandish thoughts are typically discarded by most.
It's the ones that have some element of truth within them.
That's what Satan does, isn't he?
He makes sure that there's a little bit of truth and that is
the worm, but the hook is the error, and that's the one that
gets you. And so if you were to ask again,
a Muslim, do you believe in Jesus Christ?
The answer, of course, 100% will be yes, we believe in Jesus
Christ. But what exactly does that mean?
Well, as we look at the nature of God, they do not believe that
Jesus is God. Do they believe in Jesus?
Yes. But Jesus is not God.
He is not part of the triune God at all.
Jesus, rather is one of the prophets that he was the
greatest of the prophet, except for Muhammad.
Now understand, even those words just coming out of my mouth,
they're blasphemous. Of course, I'm not committing
blasphemy on teaching you this. But that that would be taught is
rank heresy, that Jesus is lesser than Muhammad.
And we saw the character Muhammad last week, that he was
not a man of high character, that he was a warrior prophet,
but that he also had very low morals in every metric and in
every sense of the word. But then we also saw that they
believe that Jesus is to be revered.
Now, this is important, that they do believe that Jesus is to
be be revered. In fact, some of the videos that
I watched this week about Islam and about this very issue, they
would often say Jesus may peace be upon him, Jesus may peace be
upon him. And they say that as a form of
reverence. But here is where the issue
comes. Here's where the rub is that
Jesus is not simply to be revered, but it is not enough to
Revere Jesus Christ. What do we need to do to Jesus
Christ? We bow the knee to him that he
is not just simply revered as we Revere many things, don't we?
We have great respect for many different elements in this
world. But Jesus Christ is not simply
to be revered. He is to be worshipped.
He is to be the one and only way of salvation.
And because Jesus is revered, quote UN quote by Islam.
And again, I want to make clear that while they give lip
servants to reverence, you cannot change the very
fundamental character of God himself and also Revere him at
the same time. There is no way that those two
spheres can overlap any way at all.
You cannot have reverence for God and then also besmirch his
name and then also blasphemy his name at the same time that there
is no reverence there at all. It's just a way to placate
Christians. It's a way to sound more
reasonable, but in no way, shape or form is there any type of
reverence truly for Jesus Christ in Islam.
Well, we're going to look more at what they believe the nature
of Jesus Christ is in just a moment.
But before I do that, I would like to show you a brief video,
again, not from a Christian point of view, but from a direct
Muslim point of view about what they believe about Jesus Christ.
And then we'll dig a little bit deeper into that.
Let's go ahead. Jesus or Isa Al Isalam is an
important figure appearing in both the Bible and the Quran,
but do both Muslims and Christians have the same belief
regarding his position and role? There are some similarities
between them when it comes to the life of Jesus, such as the
belief that he was born to the Virgin Mary or Lady Mariam, as
the Quran says. She said.
How can I have a boy while no man has touched me and I have
not been unchaste? He said.
Thus it will be. Your Lord says it is easy for
me, and we will make him a sign to the people and a mercy from
us. And it is a matter already
decreed. Secondly, Jesus was given the
ability to perform certain miracles, such as resurrecting
the dead, giving sight to the blind, and curing the severely
paralyzed. Despite these similarities,
there are some points of differences as well.
Christians believe Jesus is an Incarnate or son of God who is
crucified in this world as a sacrifice and atonement for the
sins of mankind. Muslims, on the other hand,
believe Jesus was one of the greatest prophets to have been
sent by Allah for the guidance of humankind, and believing in
him as a prophet is a requirement.
In Islam. He was sent with a divinely
revealed book called the Injeel, a gospel that was later
corrupted and altered, Allah says in the Quran.
Then we made our messengers follow them one after the other.
Then we sent after them Isa, the son of Mariam, and gave him the
Injeel and placed compassion and mercy in the hearts of his
followers. In another verse of the Quran,
Allah says Jesus came to his people as a prophet, confirming
the teachings of the previous divinely revealed book and the
teachings of Prophet Moses. Jesus, son of Mary said,
Children of Israel, I am sent to you by God, confirming the Torah
that came before me. One of the most important
differences Islam has with Christianity is on the
crucifixion of Jesus. According to the Muslims, Jesus
was never truly killed, rather it was made to appear for the
people that it was Jesus but in reality it was someone else.
Allah says in the Quran and for their saying surely we killed
the Messiah ISA son of Mariam, the messenger of Allah.
And in no way did they kill him and in no way did they crucify
him, but a resemblance of him was presented to them.
This also means Muslims believe Jesus is alive and never died,
rather his body was raised into the heavens by Allah.
He will return near the end of times along with the Mahdi, the
12th Imam from the Al UL Bay and assist the Imam in establishing
justice and peace in the world just as it would have been
filled with tyranny and injustice.
Jesus or Isa al Aisalam. So that's enough.
I don't know how you feel about that, but there's a major
differences between what the Bible says about Jesus and what
is taught by the Muslim religion about Jesus.
And the greatest perhaps would be this was that first, well,
first of all would be that Jesus is not God, but secondly, that
he did not die on the cross, that he went on the cross but
was somehow replaced on the cross and never truly died in
the way that the Bible says. Now, if you're like me, this is
a curiosity. How would he have been on the
cross, but yet not died on the cross, but somehow was replaced
on the cross. And so I went on to a little bit
of a rabbit hole, or down a rabbit hole, if you will,
looking on YouTube at different Muslim clerics and to be able to
hear some teaching. And I did bring me to the place
of where we are in Matthew chapter #12 And so we're going
to read just a moment Matthew chapter #12 beginning in verse
#38. But I watched a a Muslim cleric
answering questions from different people, including from
Christians. And when this video that I had
seen, there was probably well over 1000 people who were in
this room. And this gentleman was asking a
question of the cleric and said, well, you do not believe that
Jesus died on the cross. But I would tell you that the
Bible does say that Jesus died on the cross.
And so how would you answer that?
And so he said, I'd like you to consider Matthew chapter #12 and
verse #38 He says, because your own Bible teaches that Jesus
never died on the cross. And if you're like me, that
immediately gets your interest because I'm thinking I've read
the Bible enough to know it seems very clear that Jesus died
on the cross. And so again, I, I want to be
very careful how I explain this to you, that when we're dealing
with error, when we're dealing with these false doctrines that
are out there, is that they will take one verse of the Bible or
one small section of verses from the Bible and they will twist it
into something completely different.
And that they will do was they will rely on the ignorance of
the people who they're talking to who do not realize there's a
whole mountain of evidence that would be contrary to the one
verse that they are quoting. So look at Matthew chapter 12
verse #38 it says this. Then certain of the scribes and
the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from
the And he answered and said unto them, An evil and
adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no
sign be given it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.
Now look at this For as Jonas was in the belly, or rather
whereas Jonas was 3 days and three nights in the whale's
belly, so shall the Son of Man be 3 days and three nights in
the heart of the earth. And so this cleric is starting
to expound off of these verses and he says that prophet Jesus,
you know, peace be unto him. And he says this prophet Jesus
that he makes the mention of the sign and he says the sign is
going to be the fact that of the sign of Jonah.
And so he says, now let me ask you when he says, you know about
the book of Jonah, right? And the man said, yes, he says
Jonah. And he goes through explaining
what happened in Jonah up to the point when Jonah got thrown off
of the boat. He says when Jonah got thrown
off of the boat, was he alive or dead?
And the man said alive, He says when he was bobbing up and down
in the water, was Jonah alive or dead?
He said alive. He says Jonah got swallowed in
the the fish. He says was he alive or dead?
And the man said alive? He does.
When he was spit back out, was he alive or dead?
He said alive. He says at any point in the book
of Jonah, do you find Jonah being dead?
And he said, no. He says, well, this is the sign
that Jesus pointed to. He says, and as Jonah was alive,
he says then also Jesus was alive and never died.
Now we'll say that you can just quickly look at those verses and
maybe make a connection to what he's saying if you didn't know
any of the other verses of the Bible.
But the problem with this, and This is why Bible proper Bible
interpretation is so important. This is why every word in the
Word of God is important, that we don't just read just in a
very general way, but that every word and how the words are put
together are so important. You look at it again, verse #39
says an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign,
and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the
prophet Jonas. What's the sign of the prophet
Jonas? 4 As Jonas was 3 days and three
nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be 3 days
and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Now does it say that the sign was that he would die as Jonah
died, or that he would live as Jonah lived?
No. What is the sign?
The three days and the three nights, That's the sign.
And So what he did was he took what the word of God said and he
turned it and twisted it into something completely different
and hoping that nobody paid attention.
Let me put it to you this way. Some of you know, we had a
little bit of an accident with our car back before Bethany's
wedding the day before. As a matter of fact, we were
stopped. Casey was stopped at the light.
My dad, Diane's mom were in the were in the car and it was a
three car pile up. We were at the front.
It happened at a light and so there was some damage in the
back corner of the car. Now, there's been someone else
in the church, which for legal reasons, I can't say because
we're online and the insurance companies might be watching, but
that had some similar issues that happened just recently in
the last few weeks. I'm just kidding about the
insurance company anyway, but you understand what I'm saying.
But so, so could you imagine saying, I say, you know, I had
this accident and it damaged the corner of the car and my brother
had an accident and it damaged the exact same corner of the car
And someone heard me say that and say you, you were in the
exact same accident. I said, no, that's not what I
said. You, you both were on the same
Rd. No, I didn't, I didn't say that
you, you, you both, you were driving the same type of
vehicle. No, I didn't say that they were
both A3 car pile up. No, that that's not what I said.
No, no, that's what you said. You said it's exactly the same
thing I said. No, I was just comparing where
the damage was on one car and where the damage was on my car.
I wasn't saying that the whole thing was the same.
I was just saying that this one thing was the same.
Jesus was not saying that all of his life experiences would be
exactly like Jonah's. That's not what he said.
He said this. There was an element of time
that was when one way in Jonah's life that will be very similar
in life. And was that true?
It absolutely was true. We understand that the three
days and the three nights between the crucifixion and the
resurrection, that's all that's being said here.
And false doctrine always takes the clear teaching of the Word
of God and does what it adds to it, takes away from it or twists
it. And so that's what they've done
here because they say, well, this is really the only evidence
of Jesus dying on the cross. And I want to say, what about
the rest of the Gospels? And then they throw up their
hands and say, well, yes, but, you know, the Bible's been
corrupted anyway. Did you catch that in there?
That the message was corrupted of the word of God?
The gospel message that he had was later corrupted that he was
really teaching about all all that time.
But, you know, Bible translators have twisted that and turned it
into its own religion. And so that's where it gets very
hard to be able to talk to somebody about these types of
issues because you get to the point where they say, well, is
the Bible even true? And of course, if they don't
understand that the Bible was true, then it gets very hard to
have the place of commonality to talk to them about salvation.
So according to the Quran, Jesus was created.
He was not Creator, He was created.
He was the messenger of the children of Israel who performed
miracles in order to declare it is Allah who is my Lord and your
Lord. Surah 351 Jesus then rounded up
Allah's helpers, the disciples, Surah 352, who bore witness that
they were Muslim. In time, Jesus fulfilled His
mission of calling Jews to worship Allah and was taken to
heaven without experiencing death.
As we just mentioned, the Muslim rejects any notion that Jesus is
God or the Son of God. Surah 19 verse 88.
And as you can see, the rejection of the deity of Christ
goes hand in hand with the rejection of the triune nature
of the Lord. Islam rejects the very nature
and character of God as revealed in scripture.
We know that Lord, Father, Son and Holy Ghost three and one,
one and three and that that is completely and totally rejected
by Islam. Instead, the Quran reveals that
a God Allah, who is transcendent and removed from mankind and
sovereign arbitrarily works as he pleases and works in complete
mystery. So you can see not just the
character of Jesus Christ, but the very character of God.
And I'll go through these very quickly that it says Yahweh, the
God of the Bible. But then Allah, the God of
Quran. Look at the difference for God
so loved the world compared to God baguettes not nor is he
forgotten that there is no. Son of God, immutability.
God never changes compared to Allah.
Changes as he wills. How do you please a God who
changes as he wills? How do you please a God who
lives by his own whims and his own desires?
It's impossible to do one. God is knowable, but yet Allah
is ultimately unknowable. The nature of the relationship.
God is sovereign and intimate compared to Allah is a dominant
master and sovereign on one side, the incarnation.
That God became flesh but Allah does not will become flesh
according to Quran. The nature of unity 1.
Essence and three persons, Father, son and Spirit compared
to Allah is one. In mathematical terms.
God's love is unconditional according to the word of God,
but Allah's love is conditional in the Quran.
Truthfulness. God's word is truth.
We see in the word of God, Allah is the greatest deceiver.
Quran 354. That is certainly a very, very
difficult thing to understand. And of course, the word of God
says that God's son died on the cross to atone for the sins of
the world and that the, that the Quran makes clear that Allah has
no son in Surah 2116. I want to read you a little bit
longer piece up. We're not there yet.
Sorry, go back. All right, push the wrong
button. All right, Let you look at that
for a while. But I want to read to you an
article and I I don't like reading longer articles, but I
do think it helps gel this thought a little bit more is
from a group called the Muslim Unity Center.
Sure, thank you, brother. That'll be fine.
The Muslim Unity Center, it says this, the Quran tells us a lot
of wonderful things. Thank you about Jesus.
As a result, believers in the Quran love Jesus, honor him,
believe in him. In fact, no Muslim can be a
Muslim unless he or she believes in Prophet Jesus.
It will be quickly obvious though the disciples often
referred to him as Almighty God. But I'm sorry, it's important
that I read this correctly. It will be quickly obvious that
the disciples often referred to him as a servant of Almighty
God, but never son of Almighty God.
Peter, for example, said the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the
God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus.
And their contention is the disciples only called Jesus a
servant. They never called him God, he
continues. Peter further said God raised up
his servant. Acts 326, where the title
servant refers to Jesus. Not only was it Peter, but the
entire group of believers viewed Jesus as Almighty God's servant.
When they raise their voices together in prayer to Almighty
God in the course of their speaking to Almighty God, they
call Jesus your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed.
Acts 427. They repeated this title also in
verse 30. Consistently Jesus was being
called servant of Almighty God by the original followers of
Jesus. Some people mistakenly thought
that the disciples called Jesus son of Almighty God.
This inconsistency of translation actually helped to
give this wrong impression. In Listen to this in the King
James Bible. This is a Muslim group that says
this in the King James Bible. The translator called Jesus son
of Almighty God in Acts 313 and 26 and the child of Almighty God
in Acts 427. They simply translated the Greek
word paeda as son or child. But the word paeda also means
servant, and the present context demands this translation, since
the author of Acts is trying in this passage to establish that
Jesus is indeed the servant of Almighty God.
The translators knew that the Greek word paeda means servant.
When the same word was used for David in chapter 4 verse 25,
they translated as servant. Why not call Jesus also by the
same title? Or do they feel that son is the
correct translation? Why not call David son of
Almighty God? Jesus and David are both called
by the same title in Greek. Why not call them by the same
title in English alone? Other translators recognizes
this inconsistency. Listen to this and corrected it
in modern translations of the Bible.
So the Muslims say, you know what, those newer translations
of the Bible, they take out some of the mentions of the deity of
Christ that probably ought to give us pause to think a little
bit about why we use the King James Bible, Amen.
And so it says this. Nevertheless, the fact that
Jesus was almighty, God's servant, was so well known that
even the King James Bible called him by this title of Matthew
1218 referring back to Isaiah 42.
One Matthew identified Jesus as the servant of the one true God,
Yahweh. So there's a lot that can be
said about what takes place here, but the fact of the matter
is Jesus Christ was a servant. I, I think would anyone argue
with the fact that Jesus was a servant, of course was a
servant. You know, he was a servant.
I know he was a servant. The Muslims know he was a
servant. Of course Jesus Christ was a
servant. We know that He came to serve,
but we also know this while He was a servant, he ultimately was
and is God. That part of the fact of Jesus
coming to this earth was to become as what?
The form of a servant. But yet the deity of Christ is
immestakable in the Word of God. You can go to John 20 verse 28
where Thomas remember doubting Thomas, I won't believe it
unless I see him, unless I put my hands into the nail prints.
And as soon as he saw Jesus, what was his exclamation?
I use this often when talking to people about the deity of
Christ. He said this, My Lord and my
God. Thomas had no problem
understanding that Jesus Christ is God.
Hebrews one verse 8 But the But unto the Son, he, God saith, thy
throne, O God, is forever and ever.
A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy Kingdom.
Hebrews 18 refers to Jesus Christ explicitly as God.
I just mentioned this a moment ago.
Philippians 2 verse 5 and 6 Well I mentioned the same passage,
let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who
being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with
God. John 1030 Jesus said this I and
my father are one and he said well there could be a little bit
of misunderstanding about that. Well the next verse says that as
soon as the Jews heard him say I'm my father and one, they took
up stones and wanted to stone him.
I think they were very clear of what Jesus was saying, that he
was God. Jesus did actions that could
only be accomplished by God. He raised the dead, He forgave
sins, He created and sustains the universe.
This becomes even clearer when one considers that God said that
He alone was there during creation, which Jesus was active
in creation. Further, Christ possesses
attributes that only deity can have.
Eternality, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence.
That everywhere you look in the word of God, Jesus is God.
But what do the Muslims do? They take one verse and twist it
so much that if it was a towel full of water, they twist it so
much there wouldn't even be one drop left in it.
That's how much they twisted it. But they take that one verse,
ignore the balance of Scripture, and say that Jesus wasn't God,
and yet they Revere him. That's rejected completely and
totally that they do not Revere Jesus Christ in any way.
Again, you cannot just merely Revere Jesus.
He's either your Lord or He is not.
There is no middle ground. And so we look at all of this
and we see the nature of God. But then I also want us to look
at very quickly #4 and finally, the nature of salvation.
In Muslim theology, listen to this.
No one is lost. Now we understand we're lost in
our sins. That's why we needed Jesus
Christ to save us. Amen.
But in Muslim theology, no one is lost, but all are born weak
and forgetful. It's a big difference, isn't it?
You're merely weak and forgetful.
That's why you don't need a savior.
You need a prophet to guide you and to teach you.
Remember we saw that last week that that's why the Prophet
Muhammad was so uplifted. Why?
Because he was the 1:00 to be able to as the highest form of
prophet, to be able to teach people the good and right way.
They don't need a savior. They just need a guide.
And then their guidance comes Quran, which states these are
the verses of the wise book, a guide and mercy to the doers of
good. So how is 1 saved, quote UN
quote? By being a Muslim.
Now we understand that whoever calls upon the name of Christ
shall be saved, right? That we repent of our sins and
call upon Christ to save us. We're going to see a lot of that
in our message this morning from second Peter chapter #3 But
let's ask the question, what does it mean to be saved to be a
Muslim? Well, there's a formula that you
can follow and it's this. It's repentance and faith plus
works equals look at this possible salvation.
That is not a comfort in any way, shape or form, is it?
Repentance, faith and works means only possible salvation.
You might get there, you possibly could get there.
Well, that's not a comfort in any way, shape or form.
Repentance. What do we mean by repentance?
In Muslim terms, it means this salvation begins with right
belief as seen in the creed. There is no God but Allah and
Mohammed is the messenger of Allah.
Remember, we've seen that creed for the last several weeks.
Repentance is this is the creed. I say it three times to become a
active Muslim. But then faith.
What is faith? Well, according to Muslim
teaching, there are 6 fundamentals to the faith that
are essential to salvation. 6 fundamentals.
I'm just going to read them to you #1 Belief in one God alone
with no partners, which means this.
No Jesus #2 belief in angels #3 belief in the revelations which
came down, most notably the Quran #4 belief in all his
prophets from Adam to Muhammad. 5 belief that Allah will judge
all men and women, and six believe that all men and women
will spend eternity in either paradise or hell.
So that is faith. You have to believe in those six
things and then what follows is works.
Right action must accompany belief.
All the pillars must be followed on top of the commands of the
Quran and the Hadith. So you have to follow the five
pillars that we've been looking at everything that's in the
Quran, everything in the deep and then it is possible that you
will achieve salvation. Now we see at the judgment, the
hope is the weight of the good outweighs that of the bad.
So we understand what the Bible says about salvation is this is
that if you sin, you are a Sinner and that you are in need
of a Savior, that when we get to the Great White Throne Judgment,
well, if you are saved, you won't go to the Great White
Throne judgment. But if someone is unsaved and
goes the Great White Throne judgment according to what we
see in Revelation chapter #20 is that your works will be judged.
And it's not your good works and your bad work weighed on a
cosmic scale is if you have sinned once you're a Sinner,
you've transgressed and you need a Savior.
And everyone in humanity's history that has tried to save
themselves their own way, including by the way, Muslims
will have to show that they can have salvation on their own.
And every single person at the Great White Throne judgment will
be guilty because they'll find holiness within themselves.
And holiness isn't found with ourselves.
It's only found within Jesus Christ.
But to them it's this, your good works and your bad works.
You put them on a scale and you hope the good works tip to the
good side and the bad works lift themselves up.
Then this. There are many things that could
send someone to hell. Now look at this arrogance,
stubbornness, careless words, giving a temptation.
These are just a few of the examples of the sins that could
send a person to hell. So let me ask you this, where is
any type of comfort within the Muslim religion?
Where is there a time where you have the security of knowing
that someday you will spend an eternity with Allah?
Where do you get to the place where you feel like I know that
I am a friend of Allah, I know that I will spend eternity with
him and have comfort and peace? The answer is there is no Muslim
who could ever have that. So much so that listen, it's
taught that Muhammad couldn't even guarantee that he'd make it
to heaven. Muhammad, if he couldn't make
it, what Muslim could make it? What an awful, awful line of
theology. What hopelessness.
And that's why when we see the rabid following of Islam
throughout the world, the calls to prayer, the the absolute
devotion, listen, it's not about love, it's about fear.
Why? Because I've got to make sure
that in the scales of Allah's justice I've done enough good to
be able to make it to heaven. Listen to this.
Even infants are not assured of making it to heaven if they
pass. In fact, there's a great
likelihood that infants would die in the Muslim theology and
go to hell. It's an awful pernicious line of
doctrine. There is one guarantee though,
that someone could make it to heaven, and this is found in
Surah 9 verse #111 and it is this.
It is not that that would be the end.
That would be the end. How many times I push?
What did I do here? Let's see, keep pushing this.
Hold on. I feel like I had this, like
this real flourish there, and then I just totally, totally
messed it up. All right?
I don't know what I did. Here we go, here we go, here we
go, here we go, here we go. This is it.
No, that's not it. All right, so I didn't save the
last slide. Here is the only pretend that
last 30 seconds didn't happen. OK, Here's the only guarantee
that a Muslim has of making it to heaven is being a martyr.
Does that explain some of the things that we see throughout
the world, by the way, to explain some of what we see in
Gaza, why people would so willingly do some of the
unthinkable things that they would do?
Why? Because it's the only way they
can be sure they will go to heaven.
When you understand that, it explains a lot of what we see in
this world. And again, this isn't my, my
word saying this, that Surah Chapter 9 verse #111 And I
checked it myself to be able to make sure that this wasn't
something that was mistaken. It is very, very real.
The only way a Muslim can know is by giving their life for the
faith. So what does that mean?
Again, nothing is done out of devotion, true devotion.
It is completely done out of fear.
There is no love. There is no love.
What do we see about the word of God when it comes to salvation?
Well, that Jesus Christ, actually, we have time to go
there. Turn to Acts chapter 4.
I saved so much time on that slide, not being there.
I got time to turn to Acts chapter 4.
All right, I think I didn't save that slide.
That's a that's a bummer. All right, by the way, this is,
I purposely picked this text because it's that sermon of
Peter's that the Muslims were out, that he just kept calling
Jesus a servant, A servant, A servant.
As we read just a little bit here, let me ask you, what do
you think is meant by Peter in relationship to Jesus and
salvation? So let's look at Acts chapter 4.
Look at verse #8 the Holy Ghost. I don't know how to explain that
either. So they don't believe in the
Trinity. But anyway, Peter filled with
the Holy Ghost, said unto them, You rulers of the people and
elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deeds
done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole?
Be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel, that
by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom He crucified,
whom God raised from the dead. Again, do you see it right
there? He's raised from the dead.
Well, how was He raised from the dead if He didn't die?
The contradictions are so numerous.
We raised from the dead even by him.
Doth this man stand here before you hold?
This is the stone which was said it not of you builders, which
has become the head of the corner.
Now this is a strong and important statement in the New
Testament. Understanding the person and
work of Jesus that He is the chief cornerstone.
Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament Psalm 118 verse #22
but then Jesus made reference of this again himself.
Matthew 2142, Mark 12 verse 10 and 11 and Luke 20 verse 17.
Peter quoted it here that he also quoted in first Peter
chapter 2 verses 7 and 8, which you might remember from our
series on Sunday mornings. But then also Paul alluded to
this verse in Ephesians 2 verse #20 as well, that when it comes
to salvation that Jesus is the chief cornerstone.
And here's the capstone of all of this.
Go to the next verse. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there is none other name under heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved.
Hey, there is. That's it.
All right. Amen.
That's I know. Ralph.
I'm with you. All right, all right.
I was dying up here. All right.
Now I was withering on the vine up here.
We found it. That's all right.
Thank the Lord. But what do we see?
We see this, that Jesus is the only name to be saved under,
that he is the chief cornerstone.
And that is the theme from Old Testament to New Testament, from
prophets to gospels to epistles, that it's all about Jesus
Christ. Now we learned some very
important things about folks who believe the Islamic faith.
This last, this, this lesson we're going to try to take by
God's grace, take those things that we learned and be able to
help understand their mindset to better be able to show them the
Jesus Christ of the Bible. You say, well, they're not going
to be very receptive. They're they're very far away
from what we believe. It's not about whether they're
receptive enough or not. It's about us being faithful and
giving the gospel. And that's knowing the best way
to do it by understanding a little bit of what they think.
Thank you for listening. To the sermon from the pulpit of
Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing
to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us
know by contacting us at info@mylibertybaptist.org.
Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,
MA. May the Lord bless you as you
grow in His Word.